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Lincoln Centennial 
Association Addresses 



DELIVERED AT THE ANNUAL BANQUET HELD AT 

SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, FEBRUARY TWELFTH 

NINETEEN HUNDRED AND TWELVE, COM 

MEMORATING THE ONE HUNDRED AND 

THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

BIRTH OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 






THE LINCOLN CENTENNIAL ASSOCIATION 

Object: — To properly observe the one hundredth 
anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln; to 
preserve to posterity the memory of his words and 
works, and to stimulate the patriotism of the youth 
of the land by appropriate annual exercises. 

INCORPORATORS 

*The Honoeable Melville W. Fuller 
The Honoeable Shelby M. Cullom 
The Honoeable Albert J. Hopkins 
The Honorable Joseph G. Cannon 
The Honorable Adlai E. Stevenson 
The Honorable Richard Yates 
The Honorable J Otis Humphrey 
The Honorable Charles S. Deneen 
The Honorable John P. Hand 
The Honorable James A. Rose 
The HonorableBen F. Caldwell 
Dr. William Jayne 
Mr. John W. Bunn 
Mr. Melville E. Stone 
Mr. Horace White 



♦Deceased. 




OFFICERS 

President, J Otis Humphrey 
Vice President, John W. Bunn 
Secretary, Philip Barton Warren 
Treasurer, J. H. Holbrook 



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Pa^e three 



INTRODUCTION BY JUDGE HUMPHREY 

We look at the stars from two motives: because 
they are luminous and because they are mysterious, 
but seen through a perspective of fifty years, 
Lincoln appears to us as a brighter radiance and a 
deeper mystery — the mystery of individual genius. 
As the years pass by, the choicest spirits of the 
world are coming more and more to feel an absorb- 
ing affection for and to live as in the hallowed 
presence of this man who for a full generation went 
in and out among the people of Springfield. 

Lincoln believed in liberty. It was his oft ex- 
pressed wish that all men everywhere might be free 
yand he believed that the sovereignty of self over self 
is the highest liberty. 

He believed in equality — that as liberty is the 
summit of society, so equality is its base — equality 
before the law. 

He believed in fraternity and his definition of 
fraternity was that portion of each one's self which 
he gives up for others. 

He was an idealist, but he did not allow it to make 
him worthless or impractical. He believed and 



Page four 

practiced the doctrine that politics is the science of 
second bests. 

As a statesman, he secured the best attention from 
the wisest in his audience. In the great debates, 
Mr. Douglas more than any other man of his party 
appreciated the power of his unanswerable state- 
ments. 

As a politician, his weighty thoughts evoked small 
applause from the ignorant and he did not regard it 
as the first duty of a public man to organize a 
literary bureau for self laudation. 

He believed in what he was pleased to call the 
plain people ; was often heard to say he thought the 
Lord must have a special regard for them, because 
He made so many of them. His chief work was in 
their behalf and he was fully sustained by them but 
he exacted no homage from the masses, and he 
believed it was as illogical to despise a man because 
he is rich as because he is poor. 

He was honest, but he did not pretend to be 
singular in that regard. 

For years he had gone up and down the prairies 
of Illinois reasoning of righteousness, temperance 
and judgment to come, but the East had not 
heard it. 



Page five 

He went to New York, where he was little known, 
and a few rare souls saved from the allurements of 
the market place sat at his feet and were taught by 
him as the Doctors were taught in the temple. 

He went farther East where he was still less 
known, where even his raiment was the subject of 
remark and the expiring voice of puritanism thun- 
dering from the lips of Phillips railed at him and 
all New England echoed and re-echoed with the 
sound. 

The people of the East did scant justice to Mr. 
Lincoln in his lifetime. Perhaps it was the most 
natural thing in the world that it should be so. No 
man sees the mountain near. 

It was through no lack of zeal for the cause. It 
was lack of information. The East believed that the 
chief reliance of the country was in the great 
secretaries. Gradually as the secrets of his admin- 
istration are revealed the knowledge has become 
general that Mr. Lincoln's was all the time the 
guiding hand. All the people have come to know, 
wliat some in this presence then knew, that just as 
he had handled the Clary's Grove boys, as he had 
handled Peter Cartwright, as he had handled the 
juries in this circuit, as he had handled the Trum- 
bull contingent, as he had handled Mr. Douglas, so 



Page siz 

he was handling Seward and Stanton and Chase 
and McClelland, and that in some of the most im- 
portant emergencies of the war Mr. Lincoln was 
directing the Government in spite of the secretaries. 

God bless the people of our Eastern states. 
Largely through their efforts in the beginning came 
the marvelous provisions of the Constitution ; largely 
from their example came the moral and intellectual 
culture, which mark us as a nation and which have 
caused the best there is in us to ripen into the best 
we can do. 

Tonight they have sent us one of their most dis- 
tinguished sons to voice their tribute of love and 
devotion for the character of Abraham Lincoln. 

I have pleasure in presenting the scholar, the 
author, the statesman, the Honorable Henry Cabot 
Lodge, Senator for Massachusetts. 



Page seven 



SENATOE LODGE'S ADDRESS 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: No American, I 
think, coming as I have come today, for the first 
time to Springfield, going as I have gone for the 
first time to the spot where rest the ashes of the 
mighty dead, and thence to the famous house, so 
simple in itself, so imposing in its memories, can 
stand here tonight and address this audience, un- 
moved by the memories and the emotions which 
have filled the day. < 

I felt more deejoly than ever, as I stood in that 
house, what I have so often felt before — how mar- 
velous has been the growth of Lincoln's fame. 

Your chairman has just said that the East did 
him scant justice. I think that prior to his nom- 
ination this was undoubtedly true, but it is also true 
that we are apt now to throw back our own feelings, 
to see him across the gulf of. fifty years, as he is 
today in history, and to imagine that men looked 
at him then as we look at him now. 

The abuse, the misrepresentation, the ridicule, the 
misunderstanding, which was heaped upon him in 
the ''crowded hour of glorious life," have all faded 



Page eight 

away, but tliey all existed then. In his lifetime, even 
during the awful stress and strain of the war, there 
were very few who realized how great he was. They 
were too near to judge him rightly. 

I have just been reading the diary of his secretary 
of the navy, Gideon Wells, who was in contact with 
him every day. The President and Admiral Far- 
ragut are the only men of whom Mr. Wells con- 
sistently speaks well; and yet Mr. Wells never 
applies the adjective ''great" to Lincoln until he 
stands by his bedside, as he lies dying in that little 
house in Washington. Then it seems to have come 
over him that he had been for four years in service 
with a great man. From that day to this, that 
greatness suddenly made visible in the presence of 
death has been impressing itself upon the minds of 
men. Lincoln has passed through all the stages 
through which a great historical character is sure to 
pass. His life has been written in every form, from 
the monumental work of Nicolai and Hay, down to 
the smallest volumes of reminiscences. The men 
who went on to Washington, from time to time, and 
told him how things ought to be done, and from 
whom, if we may trust them, he gathered all his best 
ideas, — they have had their say. The people who 
write about the "real" and the "true" Washington 



Page nine 

or Lincoln have had theirs. From all this he has 
emerged, greater and greater with each passing 
year, until the whole world knows that "whatever 
record leaps to light, he never can be shamed," — 
until the whole world understands how very great 
he was. 

It is a fame so great that it is not easy to estimate 
or to measure it. He is there now, with the very, 
very few in the world's history, far up on those 
lonely heights, to which only the very greatest 
among the sons of men ever attain. 

If I may refer to a little anecdote which was told 
me today by your distinguished fellow townsman 
who sits on my right, it will illustrate perhaps what 
I mean. 

Mr. Bunn said that one day Mr. Chase came here 
after the election to see Mr. Lincoln. He said to 
Mr. Lincoln, after Mr. Chase had gone, that he did 
not like Mr. Chase, and he hoped he would not put 
him in his cabinet. Mr. Lincoln said ''Why!" 
''Because," he replied, "Mr. Chase thinks he is a 
greater man than you are." Lincoln said to him, 
' ' If you could find two or three men greater than I 
am, I wish you would bring them to me; I should 
like to put them all in my cabinet." That little 
remark was the remark of a really great man. It 



Page ten 

had the touch of humor, that humor so near to tears, 
which is so characteristic of Lincoln, but in it were 
all the elements of greatness. 

I cannot hope, and I doubt if anybody can hope, 
at this time, whatever they may say about Abraham 
Lincoln, to say anything new. A few years ago I 
was asked by the legislature of my state, on the 
100th anniversary of Lincoln's birth, to deliver an 
address upon him. I then said that lip service was 
very easy, but that I thought the best tribute which 
we could pay to Lincoln, as to Washington, was to 
try to learn something from him, and from his life, 
which would guide us in the problems which we, in 
our turn, are called upon to face. We cannot, any 
of us, be Lincolns or Washingtons, but we can, at 
least, learn the lesson of their lives; and I should 
like tonight, if you will permit me, to take a text 
from one of the greatest speeches ever made by 
man, the Gettysburg speech which is inscribed upon 
his tomb. You all remember the famous closing 
lines, ''That government of the people, by the 
people, for the people, shall not perish from the 
earth. ' ' 

To the salvation of that government he gave his 
life! And what was the government which he was 
trying to save, and which he described as govern- 



Page eleven 

ment of the people, for the people, and by the 
people ? It was the government of the United States, 
under the Constitution of the United States, and 
no other! 

Therefore, in the opinion of Abraham Lincoln, — 
and although half a century has passed over, nearly, 
since he died, I think we may take him as a pretty 
good judge of what constituted popular government ; 
our government under the Constitution was a gov- 
ernment of the people. 

We are told now, by some of our more advanced 
political thinkers, that what we ought to do is to 
restore popular government in the United States. 
There is an unconscious humor in that statement 
which has always pleased me, because we cannot 
restore something which has never existed, and if 
we are to restore popular government, it having 
existed under the Constitution, according to Lincoln, 
we are to restore government under the Constitution. 

Now, the Constitution has not been changed. 
Therefore, whatever change may have come must be 
either in the people themselves or in the laws which 
have been made. But the remedy which is proposed 
is not to change the laws, assuming popular govern- 
ment to have been lost, but to change the Constitu- 
tion itself under which popular government has 



Page twelve 

existed. It is in this direction that I should like to 
say a few words here this evening. 

They propose to alter the Constitution of the 
United States in three ways, or rather, in two ways, 
by the compulsory initiative and referendum, and 
by the recall of judges. Let me take them up in turn. 

The word "compulsory" is very important. We 
have, and have always had, in this country, the 
initiative in the form of petitions and referendums 
of different kinds, always of constitutional amend- 
ments, sometimes of laws. 

In my own state, the legislature is obliged by its 
rules to pass upon every petition presented, to take 
action upon every petition, even if it is the petition 
of only one man. That is the initiative which has 
been known to Massachusetts ; but the new proposi- 
tion is to make the initiative compulsory; that is, 
if a certain number of voters, a minority, sometimes 
a very small minority of voters, request a certain 
law, the legislature is bound to pass that law, and 
then is bound to refer it to the people. We now 
have the voluntary referendum, not only for con- 
stitutional amendments, but in the states for laws, 
especially laws referring to localities, franchises 
and matters of that kind. Under the new scheme 
this reference is to be made compulsory. 



Page thirteen 



My own belief is that the adoption of the com- 
pnlsory initiative and referendum means the de- 
struction of representative government. I wish 
here to say a word on a point which it seems to me 
is -often overlooked. We are deafened by the 
cry of "progress" and people are apt to be led away 
by words, instead of looking at things. "Progress," 
the mere word "progress," does not necessarily 
indicate anything good. We speak of the "progress" 
of a disease, which may be very undesirable indeed. 
Mere movement is not necessarily desirable. What 
is desirable is to move in the right direction, to go 
from bad to good, from good to better, from better 
to best. But how does this progressive movement, 
in regard to changing our representative system, 
proceed? In what direction is that progress to 

be made? 

If I may go back for a moment,— the great objec- 
tion to legislation by direct vote is not that it is new, 
but that it is very, very old! It has been tried and 
has failed. It was well known to the Greeks. It 
was the manner in which laws were passed in Rome. 
Anyone who is at all familiar with history knows 
that the one great advance in the science of govern- 
ment which has been made, the greatest advance, at 
least, was the development of representative govern- 



Page fourteen 

ment; and that we owe to the English speaking 
people. We owe it to England, to the ''mother of 
parliaments." The system of representation has 
succeeded where the old system of legislation by 
direct vote failed. It failed in Greece. It failed in 
Rome and turned into an empire. 

Representative government has proved itself 
competent not only to advance freedom, but has 
also shown itself able to govern great empires and 
large masses of population. 

From legislation by direct vote to legislation 
through representation was an advance. Therefore, 
dismiss from your minds the idea that when we go 
to direct legislation, by direct vote, we are going 
forward in the way of evolution. It may be better 
to go back to the earlier and simpler form, but it is 
not going forward. It may be better that we should 
all return to the amoeba, which is the lowest form of 
life, consisting simply of a stomach, but do not let 
us do it under the theory that an amoeba is a higher 
development. Let us not take up the idea of legis- 
lation by direct vote on the theory that it is a higher 
stage of evolution, than that of government by 
representation. 

Now, one other step. How does the plan of legis- 
lation by direct vote work? What is its practical 



Pa<7e fifteen 

working? It is, if you will analyze it, to give to a 
minority the control of legislation. Examine any 
of the Constitutions where the initiative exists. You 
will find that in every case it is a minority of the 
voters who can cause a law to be formulated and 
submitted. 

We have had enough referendums to know that a 
large proportion, generally a majority of the voters, 
do not vote upon that which is referred; and the 
interested minority succeed in carrying their law. 

The representative at least represents the whole 
people. The law which is the product of the initia- 
tive represents only a portion of the voters. It 
seems to me that this is a government by factions 
and fractions, and not by the whole people. 

I have brought here tonight, to give you an idea 
of the methods and practical result of legislation in 
this manner, an official ballot (8 feet long, fine print). 
That is the official ballot of a county in South 
Dakota, an exact reproduction of its size, and of the 
small type. The average voter is expected to go 
into the ballot box and legislate, by voting "yes" 
or ''no" categorically, on what is on this paper. 
He has no power of amendment. He can do nothing 
but vote "yes" or "no." He is put in the position, 
as you know, of the old test question, where the man 



Page sixteen 

is obliged to answer '*yes" or "no," when you ask 
him, "Have you stopped beating your wife?" He 
must answer "yes" or "no." I submit that it is 
difficult to give an intelligent answer in that way. 
And yet that is the way in which we are told that we 
can get good laws. It is invariably the creation of 
a system of legislation which it is impossible for any 
people, no matter how intelligent, to carry out well. 
Those are a few of the practical objections. 

This new plan destroys representative govern- 
ment. It turns members of Congress or of the legis- 
lature into mere machines of record. No one would 
care to hold such a place except those who would be 
willing to take it for the salary which might be 
attached. Run your thoughts back over the history 
of modern times, and you will find what is rare in 
history, — one uniform result in regard to repre- 
sentative government. The advance of political 
freedom has been coincident with the spread of 
representative government. It may be a mere co- 
incidence, but they have advanced togetlner. They 
are spreading now even into the confines of Asia. 
We hear of them in Persia and in China; and it is 
but yesterday, as it seems, that they were adopted 
by Japan. 



Page seventeen 



Look at the other side of the picture, and you will 
find that the first aim of the autocrat, of the strong 
man, of the savior of society, of the Man on Horse- 
back, is to weaken or to destroy representative 
government. Where representative government has 
perished, freedom has not long survived, and such 
is certain to be the case if the teachings of history 
are of any value. 

Turn now to the far more important matter of the 
recall of the judges. 

Let me begin by reading to you a passage in the 
Declaration of Lidependence, a document of which 
the first sentences are very familiar to everybody, 
but some of the succeeding sentences, in which our 
ancestors took pains to point out the shortcomings 
of George the 3rd are less well known. Here is one 
of the charges they brought against the King: "He 
has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the 
tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment 
of their salaries!" That was one of the grounds 
upon which our ancestors went to war with England. 

In principle it makes no difference whether the 
judge is dependent for the tenure of his office on the 
will or the whim of one man or on the will or the 
passions of ten thousand. The men who framed the 
Constitution of the United States were much nearer 



yuge eighteen 

to the question of the independence of judges than 
we are. The fathers of some of them, the grand- 
fathers of all of them, could remember the time 
when the judges of England held their offices at 
the will of the King. They could recall the days 
of Jeffreys and the Bloody Assize. To have 
an independent judge and an independent judiciary 
was very near their hearts. They considered it as 
vital to good government as anything that could 
possibly be suggested by the wit of man. 

I trust you will pardon me for quoting the framers 
of the Constitution with so much reverence. I know 
that they are looked upon very generally now as 
worthy old patriots who did very well in their time, 
but whose opinions today are not to be seriously 
regarded; and yet, — I say it with all deference to 
the thinkers of the present day, — they were rather 
a remarkable body of men. Washington was presi- 
dent of the convention. Hamilton and Madison, 
Charles Pinckney, Edmund Randolph, Mason and 
Wythe of Virginia, Wilson of Pennsylvania, EUs- 
wortli and Roger Sherman, great law3^ers all, were 
among the members. They were men of great 
distinction, men of affairs, men of the world. 

They were very familiar with the problems with 
which they had to deal, and it is well to remember 



Page nineteen 

that the problems with which they dealt, in framing 
the government, are not materially changed now, for 
the great element which they had to consider was 
human nature, and human nature is one of the most 
unalterable things of which we have any knowledge. 

They believed profoundly in the independence of 
the judiciary and the Supreme Court of the United 
States was one of the great advances in government 
which those men brought forth. It has commanded 
the admiration of the world; and yet it is today 
proposed seriously and advocated in public ad- 
dresses that the judges of the Supreme Court of the 
United States should be subjected to the recall, that 
they should be made subservient to the will of the 
very people who may come before them. 

One of the results of the great English revolution, 
by which the Stuarts were driven from the throne, 
was embodied in the Act of Settlement, which was 
passed at the conclusion of the reign of William the 
Third. In that they embodied the proposition that 
the judges should hold during good behavior quam- 
diii se bene gessevint. That principle we put into 
the Constitution of the United States, and we have 
hitherto maintained it. 

I have heard it seriously argued in the Senate 
that the judge should be responsive to the will of his 



Page twenty 

constituents. A judge has no constituents. He is not 
upon the bench to represent anybody. He is there to 
do justice between man and man. He is to recognize 
nothing but the law, and it is his business to say 
what the law is. They say the recall would make the 
courts better for the man of the people ; that it would 
help the poor against the rich ; the individual against 
the corporation. Even if that was the case, it is not 
a ground upon which to ask for any such change, for 
the judge is not to know poor or rich, corporation or 
individual. He is to know only his duty, to do 
justice as he understands it. 

Judges are human. They err at times. There 
have been occasions when even the great Supreme 
Court, going beyond its strict province, has rendered 
decisions which the current of events has necessarily 
changed. I know, too, that in our criminal procedure 
in many parts of the country, the methods followed 
are a discredit to our civilization; but there is 
nothing there which cannot be cured by statute. If 
the law is too burdened with technicalities, if the 
delays are sometimes a denial of justice, the fault 
lies with the people and their representatives. 
Procedure can be regulated by law ; but the moment 
you take the judge, and make him responsible to an 
outside power, — I care not what it is, — whether it is 



Page twenty-one 

the King or the multitude, — you take from the weak, 
the defenseless, the helpless, the unpopular, the one 
sure protection they have. Make every allowance 
you please, and every deduction you please, for the 
errors which have been committed, and still, when 
the account is made up, the courts of the United 
States and of the several states, have been a pro- 
tection to the weak and the poor and the helpless, 
and above all, to the unpopular, who there and there 
alone could find the justice which the passion of the 
moment might deny to them. 

I think that to strike at the courts in this way is 
to incur the greatest danger that can be presented 
to free government. If you have judges on the 
bench with the sword of the recall hanging over 
them, to my mind only two classes of men, in the 
end, will take those places; either the strong and 
unscrupulous man, who desires in his short tenure 
of office to make a fortune, or the weak man who is 
waiting and watching to see what the voters think, 
and not what the law is. If you take this risk, by 
establishing the recall of the judiciary, you will soon 
reach a situation like that which existed under the 
Neapolitan Bourbons, when the Camorra controlled 
the courts, by the dread of assassination. Let a 
criminal belong to some powerful organization, large 



Page twenty-two 

in numbers and united in purpose, and with a judge 
subject to the recall, such a criminal need never fear 
that he will be whipped of justice. 

It seems to me that these questions go to the very 
root of free government in the United States. The 
makers of the Constitution knew all that we know 
about government, and they made their Constitution 
on the right principles. Some states have fallen into 
the way of legislating in Constitutions, saying what 
salaries state officers shall have, where the capitol 
shall be placed, and things of that sort. Those are 
laws. They have no place in Constitutions. The 
Constitution is to be the embodiment of certain 
great principles of government, to which all laws 
shall be brought, as the gold is brought to the test 
of the touch stone. It is not the business of a Con- 
stitution to legislate. It is simply to lay down 
certain principles; and the makers of the Constitu- 
tion of the United States knew all the principles of 
government as well as we do. They knew all about 
legislation by direct vote. They were not unfamiliar 
with classical history. They sought in the Amphic- 
tyonic council, and the Achaian league for prece- 
dents for the government they were engaged in 
making. But above all, they were dealing with 
human nature. They knew they were making a 



Page twenty-three 

popular government. They intended to make a 
representative democracy; but they believed that 
the government should be made so that it could be 
regulated by the people, not tossed and shifted by 
fleeting majorities. They believed that it should 
move with a reasonable deliberation, so that it 
should not be a government of passion, but a govern- 
ment of reason, where there was room for the second 
thought. It has been a great success. It has dis- 
appointed those who predicted its failure. It has 
gone far beyond the anticipations of its friends. If 
a work of that kind is to be tried by its results, 
certainly no work of man's hands in the way of 
government lias ever been more justified by its 
results than the Constitution of the United States. 
Under it has grown up this great republic. Under 
it we have spread from generation to genera- 
tion, and our population, from a little handful, 
scattered along the Atlantic coast, has arisen to 
be ninety millions. It has gone through the great 
ordeal of a civil war. Washington said, after the 
Constitution had been adopted by the convention, 
^'We have set up a standard to which the good and 
wise may repair ; the event is in the hands of God. ' ' 
Lincoln stood upon the field of Gettysburg and 
declared that the highest duty for him and for all 



Page twenty-four 

the people was to save the government under the 
Constitution, because it was a government of the 
people, for the people, and by the people. 

But if I gather the intention of those who discuss 
and assail the Constitution now, we are not to judge 
by results. We are to judge only by promises as to 
the future. We are to go on the principle that 
everything that is, is wrong, and should be changed. 

One more thought, and I have done. The Consti- 
tution of the United States was made for the people 
of the United States, which is larger, if you will 
pause to think, than the voters of the United States. 
The new gospel seems to be that a minority of the 
voters should govern. When I analyze it, I find that 
is what they mean by the ** people." But the voters 
are only a fourth or a fifth of the people. The people 
are all ; those under age, women, resident aliens who 
cannot vote. That is the whole people, and for them 
the Constitution was made. The element we term 
the voters is simply that portion of the people to 
whom, necessarily, has been entrusted the work of 
representing the people, and expressing their wishes. 

The Constitution was made for all the people, and 
it has guarded the rights of all the people ; and when 
T hear the statements which I hear made in the 
Senate and in the House, as well as on the platform, 



Page twenty-fivt 

and listen to men declaring that if we return to the 
old system of legislation by direct vote, we are going 
to get so much better results than we have got, I am 
moved to remind them that you cannot turn aside 
economic laws, or the laws of Nature, by any legis- 
lation in the world. 

Flattery of the sovereign is as old as sovereign 
authority. There were courtiers in the days of the 
Pharaohs and the Caesars, as there are today, and if 
I may use an illustration which I used in speaking 
on this subject at Raleigh, I think I can give my 
meaning better in that way than any other. 

There is a familiar story, which we all heard as 
children, of the courtiers of Knut, King of England, 
a mighty warrior and wise man, not destitute evi- 
dently of humor. These courtiers told the King that 
the tide would not dare to come in against his com- 
mand and wet his feet. So he bade them place his 
chair near the edge of the sea and the main came 
silent, flooding in about him, and you all remember 
the lesson which the King read to his flatterers. 
Many kings have come and gone since then, and 
those who still remain, now for the most part walk 
in fetters. But the courtier is eternal and un- 
changed. He fawned on Pharaoh and Caesar and 
from their day to our own has always been the worst 



Page twenty-six 

enemy of those he flattered. He and his fellows 
contended bitterly in France for the privilege of 
holding the King's shirt, and when the storm broke 
which they had done so much to conjure up, with few 
exceptions they turned like cravens and fled. New 
courtiers took the vacant places. They called them- 
selves friends of the people, but their character was 
unaltered. They flattered the mob of the Paris 
streets, shrieking in the galleries of the convention, 
with a baseness and a falsehood surpassing even 
those of their predecessors who had cringed around 
the throne. Where there is a sovereign there will be 
courtiers, and too often the sovereign has listened to 
the courtiers and turned his back on the loyal friends 
who were ready to die for him but would not lie to 
him. Too often has the sovereign forgotten that, 
in the words of one of the most penetrating and 
most brilliant of modern English essayists, "a 
gloomy truth is a better companion through life than 
a cheerful falsehood." Across the centuries come 
those dangerous and insidious voices and they sound 
as loudly now and are as false now as ever. They 
are always at hand to tell the sovereign that at his 
feet the tide will cease to ebb and flow, that the laws 
of nature and economic laws alike will at his bidding 
turn gently and do his will. And the tides move on 



Page twenty-seven 

and the waves rise aud the sovereign who has 
listened to the false and selfish voices is submerged 
in the waste of waters, while the courtiers have 
rushed back to safety and from the heights above 
are already shouting, ' ' The king is dead ! Long live 
the king!" 

I believe that the Constitution of the United States 
framed in wisdom, profoundly wise in its great 
principles, should be sustained and preserved. 

I believe the attacks now made upon it, which aim 
at the overthrow of representative government, and 
the destruction of the independent judiciary, strike 
at the very roots of the ordered freedom which 
has made great the people of the United States. The 
appeal that I would make here, as I would make it 
everywhere, is that you would move very slowly in 
making such changes ; that you would use your best 
efforts to preserve the principles of the fathers. I 
would have you always remember that there is great 
good in the Constitution which Washington founded 
and which Lincoln saved. 



Page twenty-eight 



JUDGE HUMPHREY INTRODUCING 
MR. WILLIS. 

In the Alton debate Mr. Lincoln referred to a 
struggle which he called an '* eternal struggle,'* the 
struggle between right and wrong, and which he 
said would continue to be a struggle and an issue 
when the poor tongues of Judge Douglas and him- 
self should be silent. 

In conducting our representative form of govern- 
ment the people try to select from the brightest and 
best, representatives to meet that issue, as it an- 
nually arises in the halls of the Congress. 

The people of a great district in Ohio selected 
such a man, and they bade him go and fight that 
battle, and to return to them only with his shield 
or on it. His initial appearance in that arena gives 
promise of much good to his country. 

I present to you the Honorable Frank B. Willis, 
member of the national House of Representatives, 
from Ohio. 



Page tiventy-niru 



MR. WILLIS' ADDRESS 

Lincoln was the grandest figure in a thousand 
years of history. No one has said this better than 
that American Bismarck, the man of blood and iron, 
the great War Secretary, Edwin M. Stanton of 
Ohio, as he stood at the death-bed of his great chief. 
On Tenth street in the City of Washington stands a 
stone colored brick building of ancient design. It 
is now devoted to the work of the Adjutant Gen- 
eral 's office, but in 1865 it was a great theatre. Just 
across the street stands a humble brick house, and 
as you ascend the little winding stair and go in at 
the front door of this house, you find yourself in a 
little room 10x20, the ceiling so low that one can 
reach up with his hand and touch it. And as you 
stand in this room, with bated breath and tear 
dimmed eye, you cannot help but picture again the 
scene that was enacted there more than a generation 
ago. On the cot there in the corner lay the long, 
gaunt form of the Chief Executive. About the bed- 
side were grouped the great men of the nation, — 
Sumner was there, Stanton was there, so were the 
high officers of the army, and also there at the bed- 



Page thirty 

side were the members of his stricken family. The 
surgeon sits holding the hand of the unconscious 
President and as the great heart ceases to beat and 
he announces that the spirit has at last fled to the 
God who gave it, Edwin M. Stanton, who perhaps 
had caused the President as much personal dis- 
comfort, had probably wounded his feelings as often 
as any other man, when the last page was read and 
the book was closed, realized that the nation had 
been entertaining an angel unawares, and as he 
stood there with bowed head and tear-dimmed eye, 
he gave utterance to a brief sentence. This is what 
he said: ''Now he belongs to the ages." 

As generations of men come and go, they will 
realize more and more the truth that was uttered 
in this sentence. Lincoln stood as a mighty oak of 
the forest and when he went down he left a lonesome 
place against the sky, not soon to be filled again. 
Everyone recognizes the surpassing greatness of 
Abraham Lincoln. Yet it may not be amiss in this, 
his own home, on this, the glad anniversary of his 
natal day, to investigate something of the life of this 
mysterious and marvelous man and determine, if we 
can, the sources of his greatness. But little need 
be said of the early life in Kentucky, the life of 
privation and hardship. There was little promise 



I 



Page tkirty-one 

for the future for this country lad born in a log 
cabin amidst the vastness of the forest, and then 
when, a few years later, the family moved to Indiana 
and established itself in a half faced camp, there in 
the midst of the darksome forest, the patient, tender 
mother died and left to her sorrowing son only the 
fragrant memory of her love and care and devotion, 
and as the little boy stood by the side of the open 
grave, dug by the father's hands, and saw the coffin 
that the father had made out of lumber which he had 
roughly whip-sawed from the forest, — as he saw 
that coffin lowered in the grave and heard the rough 
clods roll in upon it, it seemed to him that the future 
was dark and forbidding indeed. And may we not 
believe that this sad experience made a lasting im- 
pression upon the character of the boy. Upon his 
face as a man were deeply graven the lines of 
sorrow. Men who knew him best have said to me 
that in repose, it was the saddest face they had ever 
looked upon. Be this as it may, this unfortunate 
and sorrowed experience no doubt made a lasting 
impression upon the life of the man. Of his ex- 
perience as a frontiersman in Illinois, I need not 
speak. Here in the city where he lived so many 
years are men that know personally of the things of 
wliieh I have read onlv in books. But suffice it to 



Page thirty-two 

say that this life in Illinois, this experience as rail 
splitter, as clerk in a country store, as surveyor, — 
all this experience served to develop in the character 
of this man those sturdy virtues of simplicity, re- 
ligious devotion and respect for hard work. No 
man could succeed upon the frontier unless the spirit 
of self reliance and individual initiative were highly 
developed in him. No man could succeed in the 
forests or on the prairies of Illinois in those days, 
or in these days, either, for that matter, without an 
appreciation of the merit of hard work. 

So in this great university that developed the 
most splendid qualities of sterling manhood, those 
qualities of religious devotion almost bordering on 
superstition, and respect for hard work, here I say 
in this great university, this boy was educated and 
grew into manhood. As it has been said of him, 
he was educated in the university of nature, by field 
and tree and babbling brook, by the ever changing 
poetic lesson of the seasons, by budding flower and 
falling leaf, and here as clerk in the country store, 
he had perhaps the first opportunity to study human 
nature, that surpassing puzzle of all the ages. In 
this respect his life was not unlike that of Patrick 
Henry. At the country store assembled the logicians, 
the politicians, the debaters, of the whole country 



Page thirty-three 

side. And here, as was his illustrious predecessor, 
Lincoln was easily master. Here he probably formed 
his tastes for things political. Here he first learned 
how to develop the strongest points in the argument 
of an adversary and then to wipe them out at a 
blow. So far as we can discover, up to about this 
time Lincoln had not expressed himself with very 
much clearness upon the slavery question. But from 
his correspondence we learn that in this period, one 
or two events occurred which helped to shape his 
ideas about this unfortunate institution. He made 
a trip down the Ohio Eiver on a steam boat and 
on the decks of that steamer he saw eight men, 
chained together, driven about as though they were 
so many beasts of burden. This awful spectacle 
seems to have made a lasting impression. In his 
speeches and correspondence he refers to it not 
infrequently. Some of his biographers would have 
us believe that another scene which was brought be- 
fore him, this time in the great southern city of New 
Orleans, was the event which had a shaping influence 
upon his future career. Lincoln had become a flat 
boat hand and in this capacity went down the 
Mississippi River, past Memphis, and on to New 
Orleans. While in that great metropolis of the South 
he, with the other flat-boat men, went to see what 



Page thirty-four 

was then a common sight in every great southern 
city, namely, the slave market. It was an open 
court. In the center of this open court was the 
auctioneer's block, and built around the four sides 
of it were open sheds, divided off, as it were, into 
little stalls, and in these humble compartments were 
housed those unfortunate victims who were to be 
the subject of the day's auction. Here in this stall 
were the members of a family, the father, the 
mother, the little children, crying bitterly because 
they understood what it all meant. They understood 
that at the next whack of the auctioneer's hammer 
one of them would be called up and perhaps sold 
into Arkansas, and that perhaps the rest of the 
family would be sent to South Carolina. Such were 
the heartrending spectacles not uncommon in those 
days, and it is said that as Lincoln went into the 
market place, a beautiful mulatto girl was placed 
upon the block and offered for sale. She bore upon 
her countenance the evidence that the blood of the 
white race was flowing in her veins, and back there 
in the outskirts of the crowd, cowering as it were 
from himself, was her Own father, stricken by busi- 
ness misfortune and compelled to do this awful 
thing. The bidding was fast and furious, and the 
bidders surrounded this beautiful girl like awful 



Page thirty-five 

birds of prey ready to swoop down upon their vic- 
tim. They commented upon her beauty. It was a 
sickening spectacle, and all this time the girl stood 
there weeping because she understood that she was 
to be sold into a life that was worse than death itself. 
And it is said that Lincoln, overpowered by the 
enormity of this awful spectacle, turned to his rough 
companions, and striking his clinched fist into his 
palm, swore a solemn oath that if he ever got the 
opportunity to destroy the institution of slavery, 
he would strike it a death blow. Whether this little 
incident is true or not does not concern us. If true, 
the poor girl who was sold to be the mistress of 
some slave driver, has long since mingled her dust 
with the primaeval earth. No one knows her name 
or story. But in all events, scenes like this made a 
deep impression upon the tender heart of Abraham 
Lincoln and from this time forth we find him fighting 
the institution of slavery with all of his power. 

But little need be said of his career in Illinois for 
the next few years. As Captain in the Black Hawk 
War, he did not particularly distinguish himself. 
As a member of the Legislature from his native 
state, his deeds are well known to his fellow citizens. 
As a member of the National Congress, his career 
was not particularly marked. Yet by this time he 



Pagt thirty-six 

had come to be recognized as one of the leading 
campaign orators and debaters in all the Western 
country. His experience as a lawyer, riding the 
circuit in southern and middle Illinois, had given 
him a wide acquaintance. He was recognized as a 
man of unusual ability and absolute unflinching 
honesty. Consequently, when the great battle over 
the slavery question was pending, it was but natural 
that his fellow countrymen should turn to him as 
leader. And when in 1858 it became apparent that 
the lines were at last to be drawn between the forces 
of slavery on the one side and freedom on the other, 
the men of Illinois looked with almost single eye to 
Abraham Lincoln as their spokesman. And here 
upon the platform in his native city he gave utter- 
ance to one of the most profound political truths 
ever published : 

**If we could first know where we are, and whither we 
are tending, we could better judge what to do, and how 
to do it. We are now far into the fifth year since a policy 
was initiated with the avowed object and confident promise 
of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the opera- 
tion of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, 
but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will 
not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. 
'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe 



Page thirty-teven 

this government cannot endure permanently half slave 
and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved— 
I do not expect the House to fall— but I do expect it will 
cease to be divided. It wall become all one thing, or all 
the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the 
further spread of it, and place it where the public mind 
shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate 
extinction; or its advocates will push it forward till it 
shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as 
new. North as well as South." 

These were bold, courageous, prophetic words. 
He stated here what everybody was thinking, but 
which no one up to that time bad had the courage to 
say. In fact, it is reported that his own political 
friends sought to dissuade him from making this 
istterance. This speech, attracting as it did nation- 
wide attention, naturally called for a reply. The 
great Stephen A. Douglas spoke in Chicago. Lincoln 
followed him. Then came another speech at Bloom- 
ington and another at Springfield, and then came 
the great challenge and the debate was on. In point 
of popular interest, and in the character of tbe com- 
batants, this debate has never been paralleled in 
parliamentary annals. 

And may I pause at this point long enough to lay 
a single flower on the grave of that great but mis- 



Page thirty-eight 

guided American, Stephen A. Douglas. Though his 
policy was a mistaken one, though the American 
people did care whether slavery was voted up or 
voted down, though they did regard the slavery 
question as a great moral issue, while to Douglas at 
this time it seemed to be simply a local question of 
economics, yet it should be remembered that after 
the preliminary contest was over, after the lines 
were tightly drawn and it became an issue whether 
the Union should be maintained or not, — in this 
crisis it should not be forgotten that Stephen A. 
Douglas stood up with mighty courage and helped 
to save the Union. I well remember hearing Colonel 
Watterson tell how, when in 1861, he was a news- 
paper man in the City of Washington, it became his 
duty to attend the inaugural ceremonies and make 
report for his paper. He stationed himself on the 
platform at the east front of the capitol, and when 
the time finally came for the inaugural ceremonies 
to begin, and the procession filed out of the capitol, 
Lincoln, looking wan and care-worn and embar- 
rassed, seemed to be a little ill-at-ease and did not 
know where to place his bat. Colonel AVatterson, 
with that courtesy which a Southern man knows so 
well, reached out to take it. But he says that as he 
did so he was rudely thrust aside by a stocky figure 



Page thirty-nine 

and looking around he saw Stephen A. Douglas 
reaching out to take Abraham Lincoln 's hat. There 
is a picture of which every patriotic American 
should be proud. Douglas knew that every word 
Ijincoln was to utter was the political death warrant 
for Douglas' hopes of political preferment. Yet he 
did not hesitate. He held the President's hat when 
the inaugural address was being delivered, and up- 
held the President 's hands after it was delivered. 

In the capital city of my native state I cannot 
forget what has been told me by many men who 
well remember the incident personally. Just at the 
beginning of the war, Stephen A. Douglas came to 
Columbus, Ohio. His coming was unannounced. He 
stopped at the old United States Hotel. But the 
news soon spread over the city that the great leader 
was in their midst and in a short time a tremendous 
crowd had assembled. This was at a time when the 
position of Ohio with reference to the oncoming 
contest was somewhat in doubt. There were thous- 
ands of men in the state who had voted for Douglas 
and who were ready to follow wherever he led. A 
single word from him would have turned them in the 
wrong direction, and yet let it not be forgotten that 
when he came out on the balcony of the old United 
States Hotel and addressed that multitude, he spoke 



Pa(je forty 

words of patriotism, said that he wanted his party- 
associates to stand with the President, to keep the 
old flag in the air, to preserve the Union and the 
Constitution. That speech by Stephen A. Douglas 
sent a hundred thousand men into the Union army 
from Ohio. This much I say simply in passing, yet 
it should not be forgotten that in the Lincoln- 
Douglas debate, Lincoln was everlastingly right and 
Douglas was wrong. Lincoln's skill as a debater 
was never shown to better advantage than it was in 
the debate at Freeport. It was at this debate that 
he put to his opponent the famous question about 
the existence of slavery in the territories. This in 
substance was the question: ''Is there any lawful 
way in which the people of a territory can exclude 
slavery from that territory?" Many of Lincoln's 
adherents sought to dissuade him from his purpose 
in asking this question, but he is reported to have 
said: ''Stephen A. Douglas cannot answer that 
question and be elected President of the United 
States." Lincoln saw that he had his adversary 
impaled upon the horns of a dilemma. If Douglas 
said that the people of a territory could keep slavery 
out of the territory, his statement would be satis- 
factory to the North, but would create turmoil in 
the South. If he said that the people of a territory 



Page forty-one 

could not exclude slavery, this doctrine would be 
pleasing to the South, but would be rejected by the 
North. So that no matter which way he answered 
the question, it was clear that it meant trouble for 
him and the political organization at the head of 
which he stood. 

Lincoln proved to be a prophet in this particular. 
It was the Freeport doctrine that defeated Douglas 
for the Presidency, and divided hopelessly the Dem- 
ocratic party in the campaign of 1860. So out of all 
this controversy and conflict, finally the Civil War 
came. Lincoln was elected. Bidding farewell to his 
friends and neighbors, he journeyed across through 
Indiana and Ohio and Pennsylvania, making brief 
addresses on the way, and finally, through consider- 
able peril, reached Washington in time for the in- 
auguration. And what an inaugural it was. It is 
interesting to us in the discussion of this theme 
only as it shows the character of the man. Lincoln's 
place as a statesman is assured. He ranks with the 
great constructive builders and political prophets 
of all ages. His first inaugural address was a simple, 
precise statement, containing argument, and a re- 
counting of historical facts, and yet there was not 
a single note of bitterness or hatred. Listen to the 
closing paragraph of that speech : 



Page forty -two 

"I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. 
We must not be enemies. Though passion may have 
strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The 
mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle- 
field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearth- 
stone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of 
the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by 
the better angels of our nature." 

In this paragraph there is the spirit of Moses and 
Isaiah. "We are not enemies but friends. We must 
not be enemies." When the great President uttered 
these words, he looked far past the struggling multi- 
tude below him. He peered through the war clouds 
then impending, he saw through the night of dark- 
ness and despair, and to his vision was presented 
the glorious day break when the hideous night of 
warfare was over, the glorious day in which the 
North and South would again be united and the 
Union would be saved, a glorious heritage of all the 
ages. While others doubted, and others criticised, 
and others were in despair, Lincoln saw clearly 
through it all. He, of all the great men of that 
period, understood the meaning of the Civil War. 
It was not a mere conflict, as to whether slavery 
should exist, important as that question was, but it 
was a broader and vaster topic than this. It was a 



Page forty- three 

question of whether Republican government should 
be declared to be a failure. In one of his state 
papers he said: ''We shall nobly save or meanly 
lose the last best hope of earth." 

In his letter to Greeley he said: ''If I could save 
the Union by freeing all the slaves, I would do that. 
If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves, 
I would do that. If I could save the Union by free- 
ing some of the slaves and leaving others as they 
are, I would also do that." 

Lincoln understood that the vast problem of the 
Civil War was the preservation of Republican gov- 
ernment. He understood that our Government was 
a glorious fruitage of a thousand years of toil and 
struggle and hardship. He understood that if the 
government should be dissolved, if the Confederacy 
should be successful, if secession should be admitted, 
it would prove that Republican government and free 
institutions were a failure. This was the great 
problem and Lincoln understood it all. Measured 
then from the standpoint of the issues involved, this 
war was one of the mightiest in history. Measured 
from the standpoint of the armies engaged and the 
heroism of the men, the world has never seen its like 
before nor since. Take your stand yonder upon the 
rocky summits at Gettysburg, think of the lines of 



Page forty-four 

blue and gray that surged back and forth over those 
hill sides. Think of the countless cases of individual 
heroism; the great English poet sang in words of 
deathless eloquence of the charge of the light brigade 
at Balaklava, and let it be remembered that such is 
the quality of the American soldier, that it would 
take a hundred and fifty Tennysons to tell the story 
of his heroic devotion. There were a hundred and 
fifty regiments in the Civil War, each one of which 
suffered heavier losses in a single engagement than 
was suffered by the light brigade at Balaklava. 
Take, for example, the famous First Minnesota, and 
I speak of this not because it is more distinguished 
than many regiments that might be selected from 
Illinois or Michigan or Ohio, but simply because it is 
perhaps better known than some of these. General 
Hancock says that as he was arranging his battle 
line, on the second day's fight at Gettysburg, he 
noticed coming up out of the little grove down in 
the valley a whole Confederate brigade, evidently 
intending to make lodgment upon Cemetery Hill and 
thus break the Union battle line. The intrepid gen- 
eral saw that something must be done at once. The 
only force at his command was the First Minnesota, 
This regiment had marched away at the beginning 
of the struggle, marched away to the grand wild 



Page forty-five 

music of war, 1,100 strong, but they had fought at 
Antietam and at Fredericksburg and in the Penin- 
sular campaign, and all that was left of the 1,100 
brave sons of the northwest were 252. These were 
to be opposed to a whole Confederate brigade made 
up of splendid fighting men and yet something had 
to be done. General Hancock gave the command to 
charge and the old First Minnesota went plunging 
down the hill, down into the valley, where they were 
hidden by the smoke of battle, and from out that 
cloud came the rude hyeroglyphics of war that told 
that men were doing and dying. And then the pitiful 
remnant slowly crept up the hill. The Union line 
had been saved, but out of the 252 men that went 
charging down the hill, only 47 came back. And then 
the next day, when Pickett's heroes were charging 
across the plains and over the Emmetsburg Eoad, 
this remnant of 47 was gathered into the "bloody 
angle" and there they fought again to keep the old 
flag in the air. They left 17 more of their comrades 
out upon the field of battle. 

Such examples of heroism as these could be 
enumerated almost without limit. But this very 
heroism and the heart-break of it all told most 
heavily upon the Great Chieftain. He seemed to 
bear upon his stooping, bony shoulders the burdens 



Page forty-six 

of the whole Republic. Not a mother sorrowed in 
the little cottage at home for the son who was never 
to come back but what her grief was Lincoln's grief 
as well. Not a tottering aged father bade farewell 
for the last time to the son who was to march away 
to the southland but what his deep sorrow was felt 
by Lincoln. Eead the story told by Frank Carpen- 
ter, who spent, in his profession as an artist, several 
weeks in the White House. He tells us that after the 
other occupants of the White House were at rest 
Lincoln could be seen walking up and down, and in 
times of great crises the whole night was spent in 
anxiety and sorrow, and on one occasion one of the 
occupants of the White House went up to the Presi- 
dent as he was keeping his lonely vigil and said to 
him: *'Mr. President, what is the matter?" The 
great chieftain responded in a broken voice : ' ' This 
war is killing me. It is breaking my heart. I cannot 
stand the sorrow and grief of it all." 

This tender sentiment found its expression most 
beautifully in the famous Gettysburg speech with 
which we are all familiar, a speech which should be 
engraved in letters of gold on tablets of silver in the 
minds and hearts of all the youth of this Republic. 
And yet this address, so magnetic in its simplicity, 
evidently failed of its immediate purpose. This is 



Page forty-seven 

the account given by Lincoln's close friend, Ward 
H. Lamon: 

"After its delivery on the day of Commemoration, he 
expressed deep regret that he had not prepared it with 
greater care. He said to me on the stand, immediately 
after coneluding the speech, 'Lamon, that speech won't 
scour! It is a flat failure, and the people are disap- 
pointed.' (The word ''Scour" he often used in expressing 
his positive conviction that a thing lacked merit, or would 
not stand the test of close criticism or the wear of time.) 
He seemed deeply concerned about what the people might 
think of his address; more deeply, in fact, than I had 
ever seen him on any public occasion. His frank and 
regretful condemnation of his effort, and more especially 
his manner of expressing that regret, struck me as some- 
what remarkable; and my own impression was deepened 
by the fact that the orator of that day, Mr. Everett, and 
Secretary Seward both coincided with Mr. Lincoln in his 
unfavorable view of its merits. The occasion was solemn, 
impressive, and grandly historic. The people, it is true, 
stood apparently spellbound; and the vast throng was 
hushed and awed into profound silence while Mr. Lincoln 
delivered his brief speech. But it seemed to him that 
this silence and attention to his words arose more from 
the solemnity of the ceremonies and the awful scenes which 
gave rise to them, than from anything he had said. He 
believed that the speech was a failure. He thought so at 



P^e forty-eight 

the time, and he never referred to it afterwards, in con- 
versation with me, without some expression of unqualified 
regi-et that he had not made the speech better in every 
way. On the platform from which Mr. Lincoln delivered 
his address, and only a minute after it was concluded, 
Mr. Seward turned to Mr. Everett and asked him what 
he thought of the President's speech. Mr. Everett replied, 
'It is not what I expected from him. I am disappointed.' 
Then in his turn Mr. Everett asked, 'What do you think 
of it, Mr. Seward?' The response was, 'He has made a 
failure, and I am sorry for it. His speech is not equal to 
himi.' Mr. Seward then turned to me and asked, 'Mr. 
Marsha], what do you think of it?' I answered, 'I am 
sorry to say that it does not impress me as one of his great 
speeches.' " 

When I visited Gettysburg last year, I talked with 
an old gentleman who heard Lincoln deliver this 
address. I said to him, ''Mr. Miller, how did tliis 
address impress you and the audience?" He said 
to me in substance these words, ''I thought that if 
that was the best Lincoln could do, he had better not 
have gotten up. ' ' And yet this address, which failed 
to impress itself at once upon the audience, has come 
to be regarded as one of the masterpieces of the 
literature of the ages and I speak of it here simply 
because it shows that element of tenderness and 



Page forty-nine 

directness and simplicity so characteristic of 
Lincoln. 

A letter written by him to a young lady in Bloom- 
ington, Illinois, is also indicative of this same 
characteristic : 

Executive Mansion, Washington, 
Dec. 23, 1862. 
Dear Fanny : It is with deep regret that I learn of the 

death of your brave and kind father, and especially that 
it is affecting your young heart beyond what is common 
in such cases. In this sad world of ours sorrow comes to 
all, and to the young it comes with bitterer agony because 
it takes them unawares. The older have learned ever to 
expect it. I am anxious to afford some alleviation of your 
present distress. Perfect relief is not possible, except with 
time. You cannot now realize that you will ever feel better. 
Is not this so? And yet it is a mistake. You are sure to 
be happy again. To know this, which is certainly true, 
will make you some less miserable now. I have had ex- 
perience enough to know what I say, and you need only 
to believe it to feel better at once. The memory of your 
dear father, instead of an agony, will yet be a sad, sweet 
feeling in your heart of a purer and holier sort than you 
have knoAvn before. Please present my kind regards to 
your afflicted mother. 

Your sincere friend, 

A. Lincoln. 
Miss Fannie McCullough, 

Bloomington, 111. 



Page fifty 

The law did not require him to write this letter. 
It was not part of his constitutional duties. Yet 
from the depth of his great tender heart, his soul 
spoke to the soul of this sorrowing maiden. Like- 
wise, in his letter to Mrs. Bixby, there is expressed 
a thought of ineffable tenderness in language of 
surpassing beauty : 

November 21, 1864. 
Executive Mansion, Washington. 
Mrs. Bixby, Boston, Massachusetts: 

Dear Madam :— I have been shown in the files of the War 
Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Mas- 
sachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have 
died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and 
fruitless must be any Avords of mine which should attempt 
to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overw'^helming. 
But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation 
that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died 
to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the 
anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cher- 
ished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride 
that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon 
the altar of freedom. 

Yours ver\' sincerely and respectfully, 

Abraham Lincoln. 



Page fifty -one 

And finally in the closing paragraph of his second 
inaugural address, this great, tender, loving man 
seemed to reach the climax of his greatness : 

Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the 
duration which it has already attained. Neither antici- 
pated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even 
before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an 
easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astound- 
ing. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God ; 
and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem 
strange that any men should dare to ask a just God 's assist- 
ance in Avringing their bread from the sweat of other men's 
faces; but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The 
prayers of both could not be answered— that of neither 
has been answered fully. 

The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the 
world because of offenses, for it must needs be that offenses 
come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." 
If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those 
offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, 
but which, having continued through His appointed time, 
He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North 
and South this terrible war, as the woe due to those by 
whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any de- 
parture from those divine attributes which the believers in 
a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope- 
fervently do we pray— that this mighty scourge of war way 



Page fifty -two 

speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue 
until all the wealth piled up by the bondsman's two hun- 
dred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and 
until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid 
by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thou- 
sand years ago, so still it must be said, "The judgments 
of the Lord are time and righteous altogether." 

And then just as the end of the struggle was in 
sight, just as the camps of bine and grey were ready 
to break and march back again to the homes on the 
prairies of Illinois and amongst the hills of Ten- 
nessee, just as the work was complete, just as it 
became evident that the Union was safe, that the 
night of despair and warfare was breaking and that 
the dawn of a new day was beginning to light the 
mountain tops, just then this great career was cut 
short by the demoniac shriek of the assassin's bullet. 
Even as the prophet of old, he had led his people 
through th€ wilderness but was not permitted to 
enter the promised land. So this great, patient, 
tender, loving man, who had steered the ship of 
state through the storm and had brought it into port, 
was not allowed to enjoy the fruits of victory, but 
let us believe that this glorious life was not lived in 
vain. Let us rather think that the splendid inspira- 
tion of this career will continue to bless the gen- 
erations yet unborn. 



Page fifty-three 

What, then, are the most prominent characteristics 
of Lincoln, the man? First, his tenderness, a spirit 
which kept him always on the alert to prevent suf- 
fering, which sent him to the War Department, 
where he stayed beside the telegraphic board all 
night long in order to give assurance to a sorrowing 
mother up in New Hampshire that the life of her 
son, who had fallen asleep at his post, would be 
saved. A tenderness that enabled him to put aside 
the high officers of the Government and the diplo- 
mats at a great public reception and reach out his 
hand to a poor one-armed soldier boy who was 
crowded off into the corner. This is the most prom- 
inent characteristic. 

Another is his magnanimity, best evidenced, per- 
haps, by his famous order to General Mead: 

"The order I enclose is not of record. If you succeed, 
you need not publish the order. If you fail, publish it. 
Then if you succeed, you will have all the credit of the 
movement. If not, I'll take the responsibility." 

And by what he said concerning the election of 
McClelland : ♦ 

"This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceed- 
ingly probable that this administration will not be re- 
elected. Then it will be my duty to so co-operate with the 



Page fifty-four 

President-ele^t as to save the Union between the election 
and the inauguration, as he will have secured his election 
on such ground that he cannot possibly save it afterward." 

Another element is his infinite patience. Worried 
by unfavorable news from the front and by criticism 
and caricature at home, he was ever patient and 
forbearing. 

Next comes his simplicity and unfailing common 
sense that enabled him, a rough frontiersman, to 
blue pencil the state papers of one skilled in dip- 
lomacy and thus save the nation from an inter- 
national struggle. His courage was surpassing. 
When others would have faltered and others would 
have despaired, Lincoln was strongest. His un- 
flinching honesty will be an inspiration to all the 
youth as long as our language shall be spoken. 

And last, but not least, his absolute unfailing and 
unfaltering devotion to the Constitution, and his 
respect for a government, not of license, but of law. 
A sentiment expressed by him in an address before 
the Young Men's Lyceum of this city on June 27, 
1837, when he was yet a young man, should be known 
and remembered forever by every patriotic Ameri- 
can. In this statement, he put forth the whole 
philosophy of the American government. Without 
reverence and respect for law and obedience to the 
law, this government is only a delusion and a snare. 



Page fifty-five 

"Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every Ameri- 
can mother to the lisping babe that prattles on her lap ; 
let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges ; 
let it be written in primers, spelling-books, and in almanacs ; 
let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative 
halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And, in short, let 
it become the political religion of the nation ; and let the 
old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the 
gay of all sexes and tongues and colors and conditions, 
sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars. ' ' 

Then let us hope that- as the years swell into 
decades, the coming generation may not fail in de- 
votion to the cause for which he gave the last full 
measure of devotion. Let us believe that the prin- 
ciples for which lie struggled shall be maintained. 
Let us hope that the majestic virtues of the simple 
life of this great man of the common people shall 
continue to be emulated through the ages, and let us 
not forget that that Constitution for which he strug- 
gled and for which soldiers' lives were given up 
and the hearts of mothers and sweethearts broken, 
is still our Constitution. The principles of repre- 
sentative government which it embodies today are 
as important as they were a generation ago. And 
while there are none who openly assail this govern- 
ment today, may it not be possible that there are 



Page fifty-aix 

those who, under the guise of reform, would take 
away the real fundamental elements of this stupend- 
ous Republic. Be sure that all the so-called reforms 
are real reforms. Let us preserve the integrity of 
our judiciary. Let us maintain unsullied the Con- 
stitution made by Washington and Hamilton, and 
preserved by Lincoln and the men of a generation 
ago. Let us keep unstained those political virtues 
represented in the flag that floated at Gettysburg 
and Appomattox, your flag and my flag. There it 
flies today over your land and my land, half a world 
away. 

Blood red and rose red, its stripes forever gleam, 

Pure white and soul white, our good forefather's dream; 

Sky blue and true blue, its stars they shine aright, 

A glorious guidance through the day, a shelter through the 

night. 
Your flag and my flag, and Oh, how much it holds 
Your land and my land safe beneath its folds. 
Your heart and my heart beat quicker at the sight, 
Sun kissed and wind tossed, the red, the blue, the white. 
The one flag, the great flag, the flag for me and you, 
Glorified, all else beside, the red, the white, the blue. 



Page fifty-ceven 



JUDGE HUMPHREY INTRODUCINa 
MR. ARMSTRONG. 

On page 280 of the little souvenir volume which 
lies before you will be found a letter which Mr. 
Lincoln wrote, in September, 1857, to a distressed 
widow, tendering gratuitously his services in de- 
fense of her son, who had been indicted for murder. 
The circumstance is one familiar to many, perhaps 
all, of you. It was the Armstrong case. What most 
of you do not know is that we have here, as one of 
our guests tonight, a brother of the young man who 
was then defended by Mr. Lincoln. I am going to 
call upon Mr. John Armstrong to give briefly his 
recollection of that stirring event. Mr. Armstrong. 



Page fifty -eight 



JOHN ARMSTEONG 

Being Inteoduced, Said: 

I am not a public speaker and shall tell my story 
in my own way. I have no personal knowledge of 
Mr. Lincoln not known to the world, except what 
comes to me as family history, through his relations 
with my father's family. 

Tn about the year 1833 Mr. Lincoln became a 
member of my father 's family, — this was long before 
my day. My father's name was John, but was 
known and called ''Jack" Armstrong. At this date 
he lived in the territory then a part of Sangamon 
County, now Menard County, Illinois. As I have 
been told, Mr. Lincoln was then studying law and 
acting as surveyor. He lived at my father's about 
two years. My father assisted him in his work of 
surveying by carrying the chain. 

In August, 1857, at a camp meeting, Prescott 
Metzger, in a fist fight, received an injury from 
which he died a few days afterward. My brother 
was arrested, charged with the crime of killing him. 
On the hearing before a justice. Col. Dilworth was 
his attorney. He was committed without bail and 



Page fifty-nine 

sent to jail. After lie was indicted, a change of 
venue was taken from the county and he remained 
in jail eighteen months and was tried at Beards- 
town, Cass County, in May, 1858. He was acquitted. 

My mother employed a lawyer by the name of 
Walker to defend him, who lived at Havana. Im- 
mediately after my mother received a letter from 
Mr. Lincoln, tendering his services in defending my 
brother, and from that time Mr. Lincoln took charge 
of the case. My mother wanted Mr. Lincoln to get 
Duff out on bail, but Mr. Lincoln advised her to let 
him remain in jail as the time was then short until 
court would meet in Cass County. 

On the 7th of May, 1858, the trial took place at 
Beardstowu. Some of the witnesses for the State 
testified, claiming to be eye witnesses to the trouble ; 
that it was a bright moonlight night and that my 
brother struck Metzger with a sling shot. Both of 
these contentions were denied by the defense. 

A sling shot was found some distance away from 
the scene of the fight a short time afterward and 
the prosecution kept this weapon until the trial, 
when it was produced and claimed to be the one my 
brother used. A Mr. Nelson Watkins claimed he 
had had one that he had made by melting and run- 
ning a mixture of lead and zinc into an egg shell 



Page tixty 

and covering it with the leather from a boot leg, 
sewing the leather with a string made of squirrel 
skin which he had tanned. He was placed upon the 
witness stand by Mr. Lincoln and without any op- 
portunity to see or examine the weapon, described 
it perfectly, and before the jury Mr. Lincoln took 
his pocket knife and cut off the covering and found 
it exactly as described. Mr. Watkins swore that 
some time after the killing of Metzger he had thrown 
this sling shot away at the place where it was found. 

When the evidence was all in Mr. Lincoln asked 
for an almanac and a Mr. Jacob Jones left the court 
room, went to a nearby drug store and returned 
with an almanac for the year 1857, which Mr. 
Lincoln showed to the jury, and the date of the 
homicide in August was in the dark of the moon, as 
shown by the almanac. So upon these two very 
material points the claim of the State was contra- 
dicted and before night the verdict, which meant so 
much to us all, and especially to my mother, was 
returned by the jury of "not guilty." 

In the winter of 1861 my mother and brother, 
James, came to Springfield to see Mr. Lincoln and 
bid him good-bye before he left for Washington. 
After a short, friendly chat, and before they left his 
office, my mother said to him: ''Abe, excitement is 



RpRi 



jiaia48 



Page sixty-one 

running high and I want you to look out for your- 
self; they are cheering for Jeff Davis in Mason 
County, where we live, and I am afraid you will be 
killed." He smiled and extending his hand for the 
farewell, said: ''Well, Hannah, if so, then that is 
the way I am to go." When my mother returned 
home she told us children of this talk with Lincoln 
and what he said to her, and I well remember my 
mother said: "I have at last found out what Abe's 
religion is, he is a ''Hard Shell." 



